ABOVE: If you miss your train, consider yourself
lucky: You can spend another day in Paris.

Mistake #1: Here today, gone tomorrow

In
2009, an estimated 14.4 million visitors stayed in Paris hotels, and nearly 8
million of those travelers came from outside France. However, the average hotel
stay by a foreigner was only 2.7 nights--which means the
typical traveler from abroad had only about two days for
sightseeing, dining, shopping, and other activities after subtracting the time
needed for arrival and departure.

That's a shockingly brief amount of time to spend in the
world's most popular tourist city. We recommend staying a minimum of a
week, and preferably longer.

By
spending a week or more in Paris, you'll have a chance to become familar with
the city and its neighborhoods. After all, there's a lot more to Paris than the
Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Our advice:

Look for
ways to extend your stay in Paris, either by simplifying your travel itinerary
(if you're visiting more than one city) or by postponing your visit until you
can devote more than two or three days to the French capital. If you race into
town and leave 48 hours later, you'll almost certainly regret that you didn't
stay longer.